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Article published In: Grammar, usage and discourse: Functional studies offered to Kristin Davidse
Edited by Lieven Vandelanotte, Wout Van Praet and Lieselotte Brems
[English Text Construction 10:2] 2017
► pp. 249–273

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Co-occurrence and iteration of intensifiers in Early English

 | Universidade de Santiago de Compostela |
Published online: 19 October 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.10.2.04men
This article focuses on an aspect of intensification which has not, so far, received due attention in the extensive literature on the topic: intensifier iteration (very very hot) and co-occurrence (very extremely hot), with a special focus on Old, Middle and Early Modern English as represented in the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose and the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English. The results show that in earlier English, intensifier iteration is less frequent than co-occurrence; that while the former is clearly associated with emphasis, the latter also intersects with grammaticalization and renewal; and that co-occurrence is particularly salient in periods of instability when the competition of intensifiers is at its height. Iteration and co-occurrence of intensifiers are analysed in this article as cases of the widespread cross-linguistic phenomenon of accretion.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Introducing intensifier co-occurrence and iteration
  • 3.Setting the scene: Origin and development of the selected intensifiers
  • 4.A corpus-based analysis of intensifier co-occurrence and iteration in Early English
    • 4.1Material and methodology
    • 4.2Data analysis
      • 4.2.1Iteration
      • 4.2.2Co-occurrence
  • 5.Concluding discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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